Season is almost upon us

[greg99]

Just curious if anyone else is feeling the same as me. My DD is on a new team this season. Its a pretty good team and She was very excited to make it, as was I. The team schedule has been out for a few weeks now and I am already burned out, LOL. I hope I don't feel this way after the first weekend. There is 11 tournaments and the closest is 1.5 away. Looks like most will be overnites on Sat. if not Fri. too depending on the schedule. I feel terrible that i am not looking forward to all the tournaments, wondering if anyone else is in the same boat.

Any advice from parents that have been in this postion.
Thanks

 

[Coach JV]

Suck it up, this is what you signed up for, now you have to roll with it.
When she switched teams, they should have made you aware of schedule demands,
if you were unsure, the 2nd guessing should have come long ago. Good travel teams
require 100% commitment from entire roster. Good luck in 2011

 

[starsnuffer]

Make friends with another family and trade off weekends (you didn't mention the age bracket). That way you're looking at 6 weekends, not 11. It's your daughters sport, not yours.

-W

 

[greg99]

Yup, its just going to take some getting used to. Hopefully it won't take long to get into the routine. I will definately "Suck it up" I'm was just trying to see how others feel about the travel season. I'm sure my DD will love it, I'm just not sure how I will be able to hold up.

Making friends with another family is a great idea but i doubt if the wife and I would be comfortable with DD staying all weekend with them yet. Its 12U and DD is 11.Maybe in a few years that will be an option.

Do any of you have a time frame where you find driving doesn't pay off? For me it is right around 1.5 hours. I can usually get a hotel for under $65, alot of time with breakfast include. It just usually open before we have to leave to get on the field.

 

[RichK]

Would you mind sharing where you are located and some of the places you are traveling to? I'd really like to understand your situation (and compare it to my own) but it's tough without those details.

I think you raise a good point on "family/parental" burnout.

Here's my take: my DD played travel basketball for the first time this winter. Our family is 10 years into travel softball and love it.

I did NOT love all the commitment of the travel basketball team, it was really tough and I found myself making excuses to miss events that I've seen other parents do in softball (and which we would never do in softball!)

Hang in there this season and learn what the experience tells you...there's always ways to match what you and your DD "need" and what you can handle/enjoy. Best of luck.

 

[Coach JV]

Good Point Screwball- We require our TB players to participate in rec.
Many programs want the girls to play travel only. My 'rec team' has
3 of my TB players on it and they are having a blast, they feel no pressure
and are performing well while bringing up the quality of play from 'rec only'
players. I told them from the beginning; "the best cure for a bad Sunday of
Travel ball is a rec game" It does help that rec team is 3-0 with a margin
of victory of 8 runs.

As league president, I instituted this rule several years ago and our rec program
has increased from 6 teams to 12 in 4 years. Part of this is attributed to stable leadership
and girls flocking to our program from neighboring towns whose rec programs
are on the skids.

 

[greg99]

RichK- We are in the Baltimore, MD area. Tournaments go...PA, VA, MD, VA, PA,NJ, MD, NJ, VA MD, OH.....Then AL if we make ASA nationals.

The team just plays tournamnets, no leagues. There aren't any leagues in the area worth playing in if we wanted to anyways. I do like the idea of playing rec if you can make the teams fairly eqaul. I see no sense in playing rec games if the scores 15 nothing after 3. In my area there is no rec council that has any teams that would be a challenge. I'm not sure what it would take to bring up the level of play except haveing all travel players play rec.

 

[Greenmonsters]

The seasons need to be the same length, but have less tournaments--and have ones that actually mean something. The tourney directors are making money, while we all confuse in our American work ethic way quantity of outings with quality of experience.

We did this to ourselves, we want "playoff/showcase ball" with a winner every weekend over leagues that actually have standings over the long haul, regular schedules and playoffs and regions that mean something. We call the latter version "rec" now, having let quality ball at that level disintegrate.

What regional leagues with quality ball are you talking about??? Around here in the NE, those leagues require(d) that anybody who signed up played approx. equal time regardless of ability so the quality of play wasn't ever very good. IMO, I think this is what led to the travel ball boom, which today appears to becoming diluted because of more teams as a result of noone wanting their DD to be the #2 or #3 (fill in the position).

 

[RichK]

That's very interesting greg99--and an intense travel schedule. I wasn't implying rec as the fallback, and it does seem you have no middle ground between good teams/all that travel and a level of rec that doesn't suit you right now.

I'm in the Chicago area, teams can play a good quality "local A" schedule if they want. One of the best 18U teams in the area won ASA Northern Nationals last year and stayed fairly local. The trend though is for "A" teams to go "gold" and travel all over the country, not just the region. Gold teams in our area have greatly expanded this year (from just a handful of true gold to maybe a dozen of wannabes) and I'm really interested to see how it plays out: if the teams can compete, the girls/parents like it, and if softball in the area improves because of it.

I have a senior in high school playing 18U "A" this year and D3 next year but a pretty good 12U DD too (that we haven't been overly aggressive with yet) so I'm anxious to see what will happen with the gold trend. It will impact my travel schedule (and family budget) soon...

Best of luck, again and hope you have a great summer.

 

[KevinC]

I think "travel ball" means different things to different people.

In my area we have what I would call "travel" teams that practice twice a week and play in tournaments 3 out of 4 weekends from now until mid July - half of those you are going to be staying overnight. In general these girls do not have time to play rec ball. I actually had one of these girls on my 10U rec team last year and she came to none of my practices and about half the games (I knew up front this was going to be the case).

Then there are lot of other what I would call "club" teams that may not practice as much and play local double headers every Sunday. These girls could play rec league if they wanted to.